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Decoding the work of Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson, author of ‘Leonardo da Vinci,’ will discuss how the artist’s works melded disciplines of art, science and engineering at a talk on Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 7 p.m. in Freeman Auditorium on the Tulane University uptown campus. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)

As a biographer, Walter Isaacson illuminates the lives of visionary vanguards within his best-selling works, profiling titans of technology like Steve Jobs and founding fathers like Ben Franklin. On Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 7 p.m., Isaacson will discuss the subject of his latest book—the genius of Leonardo da Vinci—in Freeman Auditorium in the Woldenberg Art Center on the Tulane University uptown campus.

The New Orleans native said that his talk, presented by Newcomb Art Museum, will focus on “what type of place becomes a cradle for creativity and what type of person becomes an imaginative innovator.”

Drawing parallels to Tulane’s values of collaboration and diversity, Isaacson, University Professor at Tulane, will also explore da Vinci’s fearless approach of melding together art, science and engineering disciplines within his iconic works.

“One of the great things about being in college is that you get to mix the arts with the sciences, the humanities with technology, and that’s what da Vinci did to be creative.”

— Walter Isaacson, author of ‘Leonardo da Vinci’

“I want to go through his life and works and show how he wove together all of his passionate and playful curiosities,” said Isaacson.

“The diversity of the interests that he found in Renaissance Florence and Milan resembles the diversity of interests that you can find at Tulane and in New Orleans,” he continued. “I think that one of the great things about being in college is that you get to mix the arts with the sciences, the humanities with technology, and that’s what da Vinci did to be creative.”

A former managing editor of TIME, Isaacson is also the former chairman of CNN and the previous president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.–based Aspen Institute.

This spring semester, he will teach his first course at Tulane, The History of the Digital Revolution: From Ada Lovelace to Mark Zuckerberg.

Isaacson’s lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and refreshments. The event is free and open to the public.